Of Demons ReWrite Part 1: Childhood
by Mariel Nightstalker
Summary: CANCELLED. I HAVE LOST MY NOTES AND MY ENTHUSIASM FOR THIS STORY. Harry Potter isn't the Boy-Who-Lived. Nobody is. SLASH.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I suppose I should have known that I would rewrite this at some point because it is the longest story I have and therefore the most difficult to revise (I really need to fix my karma before it kills me). There won't be too many important differences- just tweaking and as many repairs to plot holes and tying up of loose ends as I can manage. Any reviews or messages with feedback are appreciated. Cheers!

WARNING: this story features various forms of romantic pairings on the unusual side, the main of which is between a young male human and a demonic pederast. If you have any objections to that or any of the other homosexual pairings, please do not read farther because I don't want to upset anybody. In addition to this, this story is quite sacrilegious if you look at it, so keep that in mind as well.

~PART 1 IN 'OF DEMONS' RE-WRITE: CHILDHOOD~

CHAPTER 1

"_When dealing with people, let us remember that we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity."_

_- Dale Carnegie_

It was Severus Snape's job to hear things he wasn't supposed to, to be places where he wasn't supposed to be, and to report his pertinent findings to whomever needed them or would provide him with the most benefits for doing so. It was how he had survived the first horrors of the War, the aftermath that followed joining the Dark Lord, and the means by which he had acquired a decent job and some small amount of security in the topsy-turvy world despite committing enough crimes to garner a life sentence in Azkaban, enjoying the chilly company of the Dementors.

So when he was having a stroll along the uppermost battlements of the Castle Hogwarts, where he worked, and happened to be close by the tower housing the Headmaster's office, he picked up something that he probably was not meant to hear and stayed to eavesdrop.

The sound was muffled through the thick glass of the window which he kept alongside so he wouldn't be spotted, but he picked up the majority of what he soon realized to be a prophecy of some kind.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"

Her voice, because even though it sounded hollow and rasping he could tell it was a woman's, trailed off into softer and softer renditions of the same prophecy, over and over again.

Biting his lip, he contemplated what to do about this. It was only fair to keep the scales balanced, after all, and he needed to ingratiate himself to the Dark Lord again before he was suspected of treachery and killed. He would be of no use to anyone dead, after all.

With this in mind, he pulled out his pocket notepad and jotted down, word for word, what had come out of the woman's mouth, his hand shaking with adrenaline. He wasn't looking forward to meeting the Dark Lord without being Summoned, but this was important and might let him live another few months without fear.

Noting the time, he growled low in his throat. Dinner would be in less than an hour, which meant that he would have to wait until afterwards to deliver his missive since he wouldn't be able to make the errand in time and not be missed.

Descending the nearest staircase back inside, he made his way to his office but was intercepted half-way by Filch, who informed him that there was a teacher's meeting before dinner.

The piece of paper containing the prophecy felt like it was going to burn its way out of his pocket by the time the meeting ended, and he groaned quietly out loud when he remembered that he would have to sit through dinner. It was the last month of the school year and the students that he was just starting to hate with every fiber of his being were more excitable than ever, their cheerful chatter ringing against his eardrums like a very irritating bell.

He barely touched his food and knew that he would be questioned about it later. When the main course ended and dessert began, he left as soon as he could without suspicion, the taste of bread pudding lingering in his mouth like a pleasant dream. There was nothing on earth that he had encountered yet that could compare to bread pudding made by House Elves.

Walking through the almost empty halls with purpose, he only stopped to take points from one snogging couple comprised of a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff instead of all of the others because of his limited time frame.

If the prophecy was melting his own flesh from urgency, he wouldn't have been surprised.

The sunset, one of the first brilliant ones offered by the encroaching summer, failed to arrest his attention as he made his way to the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest within which the anti-apparatation wards came to an end.

Grass and leaves crunched under his feet, hopefully startling away any creatures that might have otherwise approached. A rabbit scampered out of his path.

He stood still, on the other side of the restriction, rolled up his sleeve, and touched the tip of his wand to the Dark Mark.

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There was a smidgeon of doubt at first about what he was going to do about the prophecy, but eventually the Dark Lord decided that both the Potters and Longbottoms, their candidates who fit the description, should be dealt with instead of choosing one or the other. They were both Muggle-loving agents for Albus anyway, so it was going to happen eventually.

Weighing their strengths against each other proved that the Potter's deserved more personal attention than the Longbottoms, so he enlisted Bellatrix and her husband to deal with them while he took Lily and James.

All planning behind them and Halloween's eerie silences surrounding him, Voldemort trudged through the dew-soaked grass of Godric's Hollow, a twitching Wormtail leading the way.

Voldemort hadn't felt this vulnerable in years, not since his last face-to-face encounter with Albus Dumbledore. He hated the feeling and it hated him back, gnawing on the fragments of his soul like a greedy rodent and spurring him to move faster and faster.

He overtook Wormtail, who cowered to the side after reciting the appropriate password, not sparing him a word of praise. If he was willing to betray those he had pretended were his dearest friends, then he deserved nothing but stony silence as far as he was concerned.

Blasting the door open, he saw two men playing chess, one of whom he recognized as James Potter and the other as his werewolf friend, Lupis or Lapis or something like that.

He didn't bother with a greeting, blasting off a Crushing Curse at the Werewolf before he could gear up for a fight. Watching Fenrir literally tear his opponents or victims to shreds once he got going had made him well aware of what a Werewolf was capable of and it was not something he wanted to personally experience at the hands of this Light Wizard.

The Werewolf dodged, cast a Stinging Jinx, and yelled something that resulted in Lily Potter dashing from the kitchen up the stairs, casting a Stunner over her shoulder before disappearing. He hissed, realizing that he'd been played, setting off a steady stream of curses against the two men, noting with irritation that they were apparently used to working together because of how skilled they were at covering each other's blind spots.

A few minutes later, he got tired of playing at their level and blasted Lupin with a Killing Curse, hitting him in the throat. He dropped like a stone, toppling into the path of James Potter, who roared and fired off a curse that he'd never heard before.

The next thing he knew, he was surrounded by some kind of power restriction field. He grinned and upped the ante of how much he was using, shattering the pale blue conjuration and casting the Cruciatus Curse before Potter could even process what had happened.

He screamed, back arching and legs giving out. He thrashed on the ground, his eyes squeezed shut and blood starting to creep out of his sensitive eardrums, now damaged from the sounds of his own screams.

Voldemort watched coldly for several more seconds, gauging Potter's specific reaction to the curse and deducing how far he could push him with it. He flicked his wand, ending it for the time being and casting a restraining charm that left the Auror motionless even though his eyes burned with hatred.

"What can you tell me about the Order of the Phoenix?"

Instead of the tell-tale shuttering in his eyes that would have let him know that Potter was concealing information, all he saw was innocent confusion. "Sorry, I don't quite know what you mean…the Order of the what?"

"Oh, never mind!" He grumbled, privately resolving to try again just in case Potter was a really good liar, sulkily casting the Cruciatus again and letting it run on and on until the man was clawing at his own face, sobbing gibberish. He'd damaged his self quite badly, and that made him grin. There was nothing like seeing one's enemies destroy themselves, especially those that liked to get away with encountering him. He had a reputation to uphold after all, and it simply did not do to let people go around defying him without getting killed for their impudence.

He ended the curse a second time, sneering at the wreck of a man twitching on the ground, still screaming brokenly. Getting impatient, he roared, "Potter!"

The screaming quieted down.

"Where are the headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix, Potter?"

He just shook his head, blood spilling from his eyes, nose, mouth, and dribbling out of his ears. His chest heaved several times before he vomited, some of it landing on the hem of the Dark Lord's robes.

Completely livid, not to mention frustrated by Potter's refusal to co-operate, he decided to test the woman instead. "Avada Kedavra!"

Sweeping up the stairs without checking to see if he'd aimed correctly, Voldemort committed a great oversight. His curse landed a bare centimeter from James' body, and the Wizard had conveniently passed out at the exact same moment, creating the illusion of death.

Alone in his living room, ransacked by dark curses, James Potter lived.

Meanwhile, moving leisurely through the rooms upstairs until he found the one obviously designed to be a nursery, the Dark Lord advanced on Lily. He walked in just in time to hear her mutter some more gibberish that couldn't possibly be a spell over her son, clutching him in her arms and dressed to escape. The window was open, a cold autumn breeze moving the curtains.

She froze, knowing he was there even though her back was turned. Knowing, as a sensible person, that there was no way she could escape, the only thing she could think of was to face him like an adult and maybe distract him from killing Harry.

Whirling about, she raised her wand and had a Stunner half out of her mouth-

But he was faster and cast the Killing Curse without bothering to question her as he had her husband. If her husband wouldn't talk, then neither would she.

Lily dropped to the ground as easily as if she didn't have bones, not even a final parting sigh passing through her blue-tinged lips. The move jostled her son, who started to wail, beating his tiny fists against her chest, not understanding why his mother would ignore him so.

He spared a second to just look at the little bundle of squalling flesh.

It was unbelievable that there was a prophecy saying that this flesh had a 50% chance of being the one to vanquish him…this pathetic little thing was supposed to defeat _him. _

Laughing now at the very idea, he aimed and fired off his fourth Killing blow of the night…

Only to have it hit what looked like a mirror, reflect in the child's eyes, and then come back at him as quickly as he'd discharged it from his wand. It hit him squarely in the spot where an organ known as a heart in other people was. Instead of his body simply falling down, no longer held up by his legs, it turned to thick, filthy smoke.

Alone with the corpse of his mother and the foul-smelling robes that used to clothe the terrible Dark Lord, little Harry sobbed.

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Alice looked up, her eyes wide. Frank nodded, signaling that he knew that their property wards had been breached as well. She stood, going to the door and peering out through a crack in the curtains while Frank began ushering his mother out of the room, little Neville in her arms.

A gasp from his wife made him turn, mouthing, 'who is it?'

"Lestranges!" She hissed back, her hand tightening around her wand. "Quick! They're almost here!"

He gaped and then shook his head, grabbing Neville from his mother's hands and heading for their basement, in which a secret escape apparatation point was hidden for emergencies. He never made it to the door because just then a blast of magic crumpled the entire front of their house, shaking the house to its foundations and driving him to his knees. He dropped Neville, causing the child to smack his head on the corner of a table.

There was a second of silence, and then Neville started wailing, the sound harmonized swiftly by Bellatrix Lestrange's high-pitched cackling. She stepped over the flattened door, her boots crunching the glass scattered across the carpet of their home, deflecting their spells seemingly without effort with shields and dodging while her husband sent off two Binding Spells, halting Grandmother Longbottom from escaping and sending Frank crashing to the floor, shouting expletives at the Death Eaters.

Alice managed to hold off their advance for several more desperate minutes before they overpowered her, Rodolphus hitting her with a Cruciatus for several seconds before removing it and casting another Bind on her so she couldn't crawl away.

Throughout all of this, Neville cried and cried, not understanding what was going on but knowing that it was bad. Suddenly, he was lifted high in the air by one foot. Surprised at this new development, he started to giggle.

"Oh, would you look at that?" Bellatrix crooned, stroking his hair. "You might hate me, but your own son likes me!"

Frank snarled. "Put him down, you bitch!"

"Language, Frank!" Gran broke in, looking at him sternly despite the situation. He rolled his eyes.

"Mum, is now the time to be nitpicking-"

"Shut up, all of you!" Rodolphus roared, seeing that his wife was starting to twitch slightly. You did not want to be anywhere near Bellatrix when she actually lost her temper.

The room went quiet except for Neville happy gurgling, held in the claws of the only female Death Eater, who'd fought tooth and nail for her position inside the Inner Circle. It had cost her sanity and her humanity, but she'd done it anyway.

"Now that you've decided to stop bleating amongst yourselves like the sheep you are, which one of you wants to tell me the members of the Order of the Phoenix?"

No one answered, though Gran started to sob quietly.

"Very well. Frankie, will you tell me?"

He shook his head, expression fierce. "I would rather die."

"How convenient, because that is exactly what I intend to reward you with…but not right away. What about you, Alice? Have you anything to say?"

She didn't bother to answer, choosing to spit at her instead.

"Oh, come now! There's no need to behave in such bad form. Won't you be a good girl and tell me what I want to know?"

"Never!"

Grinning now, Bellatrix shifted Neville in her arms, cooing at him and poking his nose playfully, making him laugh. In mid-giggle, she tore off his arm, tossing it like it was nothing more than a piece of garbage into a corner of the living room. Neville's scream of agony and shock reverberated against the remaining 3 walls of their house, and both of his parents looked shaken to their core.

"How about now? Anything you want to say?"

Her eyes watering and obviously struggling with herself, Alice shook her head again. "Please, we don't even know anything…this is unnecessary. Just let us go."

Bellatrix snorted. "As if! My Lord has given me evidence that either you or another miserable little family is spawning something that must be killed. It helps that both groups were on the 'to kill' list in the first place." She silenced Neville by clamping her hand over his mouth, smirking at her husband in some kind of signal.

Without any more warning than that, he fired off a killing curse at Grandmother Longbottom. She left her body with a quiet groan, her tensed muscles relaxing within her Binds as she went.

"You monsters!" Frank cried, snapping out of his shock and apparently the emotion behind him boosted his magic, letting him break the Bind and make a desperate lunge for the pair.

Rodolphus simply stepped neatly to the side, casting a Cruciatus as he did so and grinning as he listened to the Auror's agony. "You shouldn't let your temper get the better of you. Didn't your old mum teach you any manners?"

Frank groaned before resuming his screaming, tears starting to stream down his cheeks in synchronization with blood from his burst eardrums. Alice couldn't seem to tear her eyes away, quivering within her own bonds.

"Oh, Frank…" She whispered, unknowingly drawing the attention of the Death Eaters back to her.

"We're not finished with you, Mrs. Longbottom." Bellatrix purred, lifting Neville up and tugging lightly on his remaining arm. It made a squelching noise, his teddy-printed jumper soaked with blood from his missing limb. He whimpered and Alice's eyes went wide.

"What do you want to know?" She asked, sounding ashamed though in her eyes a mother's protective streak gleamed.

"Who are the members of Dumbledore's organization?"

"I can't tell you all of them or else that will reflect back on us-" Bellatrix looked like she was about to say something but Alice went on, "-but I can tell you some of the most important ones."

Bellatrix considered this, switching her weight to one foot. In the background, Frank's screams reached an even higher pitch, the shrill sound of madness twisting his vocals. His eyes were rolling in his skull, fingernails wearing grooves through the rug into the wood floor.

"Very well; Rodolphus, please remove your curse or silence him. I don't want to miss any of this." Reaching into a hidden recess of her robes, she removed a notepad with a colorful floral pattern commonly adored amongst pre-pubescent girls and a quill. "Speak before I change my mind."

Nodding shakily, her eyes flitting to her silent but shaking husband, she said, "Albus Dumbledore, obviously, Sirius Black…Remus Lupin…and Alastor Moody."

"I could have guess any of those, Mrs. Longbottom. Tell me someone else."

"But those are-"

"Tell me or I skip from tearing your son's limbs to killing him!"

"I-"

"Don't hesitate! You have ten seconds to tell me three other members: you decide which of your friends you want to betray."

Alice sobbed, her face tortured by her indecision.

"One…"

"Um…"

"Two…three…"

"B-Benjy Fenwick…" Alice stuttered.

"Good, now give me two others. Four…five…six…"

"I…I…Rubeus Hagrid!"

"Thank you. Seven…eight…nine…this is your last chance, you fool!"

Alice choked.

"Ten. Avada Kedavra!"

Looking around the house in distaste and kicking at the rag rug beneath her boots, Bellatrix tossed Neville onto his mother's corpse, where he curled himself around her and quietly lost consciousness.

"Aren't you going to kill the brat, darling?" Rodolphus asked sweetly, stroking the side of his wife's face and hoping that she wouldn't get into one of her 'moods'.

"No…I think that it will be far more satisfying to just let him die of exposure and blood loss. A slow death is always better than a fast one, after all."

"And what about him?"

She shrugged belligerently. "You've carelessly broken his mind, so it matters little to me. Kill him any way you please; I'm going outside for some fresh air."

Left alone with the gibbering man, so different from his stronger self that he'd been a mere hour ago, Rodolphus cocked his head, considering his prey. "I don't think I shall expend magic on you after all." He reached for the knife he always carried on his belt for more interesting situations, admiring the sheen the starlight and fire embers from the family's dying hearth cast upon it. And then he struck.

Stepping outside, he ran his hand down his wife's back, pressing down particularly on her tense shoulder-blades. She covered his hand with her own when it reached her shoulder, snapping out a fire spell.

Flames engulfed the house as they apparatated away to share their discoveries and victory with the Dark Lord, unaware that he no longer lived.

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End chapter 1


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter, and I make no profit from this fiction.

CHAPTER 2

A silly silver device, one of many decorating Albus Dumbledore's office, began to spin and let off red sparks. The quiet humming noises from several corresponding devices started up a symphony of noise moments later, awakening the portraits.

This reaction alerted one of the many ward systems of Hogwarts Castle, which passed the message into the dreaming mind of the Headmaster, ruining a perfectly good dream.

He wasn't sure what he was dreaming about, but thinking back brought blurred images of blonde curls and a feeling of infatuation. A scowl twisted his lips and he shoved the half-remembered memories away, focusing instead of what was urgent enough to awaken him. Stretching out his mind to the careful web of magic that he'd added to the Castle, he caught the red alarm and processed it.

In an instant, he threw back the covers of his bed, fumbled for his robe while nearly breaking his leg in an effort to grope for his slippers. Abandoning the slippers as too difficult a moment later, he dashed barefoot out of his quarters and into a short-cut that somehow led him directly to his office. The belt to his robe caught in the door and he tugged it free with strength born of desperation, wild-eyed.

He skidded across the stone floor of his office to his collection of devices, which were really just disguises for slightly-illegal alert systems long considered to be in the realm of Dark Magic. He snatched up the orb, unscrewing an insignificant-looking bolt, and pushed in something else like it was a puzzle box. A ghostly image surged out of its core, glittering faintly in the light of his candles, showing the Potter's residence with the door destroyed, and then the Longbottom's property. There was a mere shell of a structure where their house had once been, and he allowed himself a moment of sadness and regret.

Would things have been different, would their lives and deaths been changed if he hadn't enlisted them into his Order? Probably; maybe they would have lived long prosperous lives and died comfortably in their beds, surrounded by generations of children and grandchildren, but if there was one thing he'd learned about the two young families, they were determined to do everything in their power to fight against Voldemort, even if it meant giving their lives.

They were martyrs, saints for the greater good.

He would make sure that a memorial was erected in their honor. It was the least he could do.

His melancholy lifted, his face following the same path and shifting into an expression that had not been seen by the public since his youth, an expression that Gellert had fondly called his 'game face' once upon a time.

First things first: he needed to visit Godric's Hollow, preferably wearing something other than a night shirt and paisley robe, to investigate any clues to Voldemort's hide-out that might have been left over. It simply wouldn't do to let something like that fall into the hands of Aurors, after all. They'd just muck it up, with their war time bare-bones training acting against them instead of for them.

He shut off the device, padding with his frozen feet through the chill of the Castle to his rooms.

Dressed and armed with all the tools in his secret emergency drawer in addition to his wand, he apparatated out of the Castle and onto the outskirts of Godric's Hollow.

Passing through the wards gave his stomach time to rumble itself into knots, empty and nervous for the first time in years. So much was planned in his personal universe, like life was his chessboard instead of a confusing maze with unseen consequences like it was for other people, that he was having trouble handling the pressure again.

Even though he knew that Voldemort was so much stronger now, he hadn't truly taken into account that this might just mean that he would be able to penetrate Godric's Hollow, held sacred for so long, itself.

A quick swish of his wand at the Longbottom's revealed that the Dark Lord had not been there despite the hideous Dark Mark glowing above their burning homestead. The flames were little more than embers now, but they licked at the edges of the foundation like the ravenous tongues of hellhounds nevertheless.

He forced himself to continue onwards, walking down the path and crunching coppery leaves beneath his shoes as he went.

The Potter's house was in better shape, but the presence of the Dark Lord's aura added a far more sinister edge to the neatly-tended lawn and flower pots in the kitchen window. Frowning, he noticed that there was no Dark Mark above it.

How odd.

The welcome mat seemed to accuse him as he crossed it.

Entering the house, he found his way blocked partially by a sofa apparently shifted by a misfired spell since it was on its side and the cushions were shredded. Moving it aside carelessly, he waved a hand-made detection device that would busily examine the air and determine what kind of magic had been in it. See, what wasn't commonly known was that magic, like grease, leaves a residue on any environment where it's cast. It was a sort of paper trail that was very easy to follow if you knew how to look at it.

So preoccupied was he with setting up his devices that he tripped over something that felt distinctly fleshy and very much like someone's legs.

Disoriented from smacking his head on the floor, he looked around and couldn't stop himself from incredulously fish-gaping at James Potter.

"What…?"

James mumbled something in his sleep, snuggling his face into the sofa pillow conveniently scattered by a Blasting Spell onto the floor, half of it utterly destroyed and the other half drooled-on.

James being alive was rather unexpected, considering that the alert had said that death had been in this house.

Shaking his head at his own shock (really, he was getting too set in his ways), he stiffly got to his feet, cast a Binding Spell on the Auror, and searched the rest of the house. He discovered Remus Lupin's corpse five feet from James', already stiff and blue-lipped, the horrifying expression of death untouched on his face by mortician's hands.

Ascending the stairs cautiously and with his wand in his hand, he peeped into first the couple's bedroom, and then a bathroom with a bath tub filled with cold water and the filmy grease of dissolved bubbles.

Both rooms were deserted, leaving the nursery. He pushed the door open, peering inside and finding, as expected, Lily's body on the floor. She was as stiff as Lupin, eyes cloudy and blankly staring at the ceiling with its collection of glowing children's ornaments and the spinning carousel that played nursery rhymes. One of the wooden animals suspended from it swung listlessly, stirred by the air he'd moved upon entering.

He thought he heard a phantom child's cry and squeezed his eyes shut. There was no one to see his weakness, after all. But then he heard it again, and he saw something stir by Lily.

Coming closer, keeping his wand steady and casting detection charms, he discovered a living human infant and the heavy presence of Tom Riddle.

He tugged aside the fold of Lily's bathrobe that little Harry had crawled under to sleep; he lifted the stirring infant and tucked him close to his chest, murmuring a 'sleep' charm to prevent difficulties, and performed a final sweep of the room. The presence he could detect of Tom was, unquestionably, quite dead.

Now all he needed to do was figure out how he could take credit for it and prevent James from contradicting him.

He headed downstairs, Harry sleepily burying his little face into his chest, and touched James' shoulder, getting a good grip on his Muggle band t-shirt for Queen. He then disapparatated with a loud 'crack!' headed for his office at Hogwarts.

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Minerva adjusted her hair, hastily tucking a lock of hair that'd dared to escape back into the bun and viciously pinned it into submission. It was hard work to maintain her professional appearance, even though this wasn't a work visit. Today, she was wearing her favorite robes, the ones with her family's plaid pattern that had been her mother's before her.

The afternoon autumn sun shone demurely down onto her, reflecting happily off of her square glasses and making her blink a little. The sky was clear except for an encroaching storm far on the horizon, the deep-purple clouds blending with the distant hills and creating an optical illusion of distant exotic lands with turrets and mountains to be explored. She shook her head to clear her silly mood- she hadn't picked pictures out of the clouds since she was a young girl.

It'd been years since the Longbottoms were her students, but they'd stayed in touch closely enough that she was allowed through their wards automatically, the parcel wrapped in butter-yellow paper and blue ribbon containing her little sweater for Neville under her arm. She'd spent three months knitting it the Muggle way for him, working extra-hard on the little gray elephant on the front of it (Alice said that Neville just _loved _elephants) to make sure that it was proportionate.

Passing through the final privacy ward that disguised their abode, what greeted her eyes made the package slipped from her slack grip, landing on the singed and ash-strewn grass with a soft rustle.

"Oh, sweet Merlin…"

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"Albus! Albus!" Minerva dashed up the stairs of the revolving staircase, for once hating that it restricted one to a brisk walk. There were some times when a lady needed to pick up her skirts and run!

Pounding on the door with her fist, she almost punched Albus in the face when he opened the door manually instead of just calling for her to enter as he usually did. He looked like he hadn't slept at all last night, his eyes a little wild and his robes rumpled.

"Yes, Minerva?"

"Godric's Hollow was attacked, Albus!"

He looked pained. "Sadly, I was already aware and have alerted the Ministry. They are already examining some samples of the area and preparing clean-up crews. It wasn't marked off with tape because, well, you know how swamped they are these days."

She opened her mouth, shut it, and then quietly asked, "And when were you going to tell me about this, Albus?"

"As soon as the article is published in the Prophet confirming that I defeated the Dark Lord."

"What! When did this happen, Albus?!"

He sighed. This was going to take a while. "Why don't you come in here and have some tea before I tell you?"

"Fine." She growled between clenched teeth, sitting down heavily on the armchair he conjured for her. It was exactly like her favorite one in her private quarters, the one she enjoyed reading in late at night after finishing grading papers. "Make sure it's spiked." She added a few moments later as the effects of her favorite chair began to calm her down some.

"Of course." He smiled tiredly at her, taking off his half-moon spectacles and rubbing his eyes.

"Are we waiting for it to get here or do you feel up to sharing the details with me now?" Minerva spoke up, impatiently crossing her legs and then uncrossing them again.

"I can tell you now-"

"Start at the beginning for once, Albus. You know I hate it when you only tell me the middle part."

"I will do my best to comply with your request. I received an alarm from one of my devices that the Dark Lord had penetrated the Fidelius Charm protecting Godric's Hollow and of course I went to confront him."

"Why didn't you summon the Order to assist you? I hope that such an oversight was deliberate and not you getting careless."

He glared at her briefly, nodding to the House Elf that popped into the room with a tray weighted down with tea treats. "On the contrary, it was not a senile reaction. I merely feared that he would be gone by the time we gathered. I was fortunate enough to come when I did- he had already killed not only the Potters but Remus as well, and he had Harry at wand point."

"So…so Harry survived?"

"Yes. He is currently in the Hospital Wing, under Poppy's trustworthy care; thankfully, he is physically unharmed. I am already waiting for the Department of Records to deliver the files with the contact information for James' relatives so I can locate a new home for the poor child. I feel terrible for him- his whole family murdered in one night at the hands of that monster."

Minerva's eyes went glossy with the tears she'd been holding back ever since she discovered the destruction at the Longbottoms. "If only Sirius were still with us; he would have been just the person I would want raising young Harry, and he would be who his parents would want raising him as well."

"I know." Albus laid his hand on hers, passing her a flask of bourbon with the other. She added a liberal amount to her tea before handing it back, watching with raised eyebrows as he did the same for the first time in years.

"Well, then what happened? How did you kill him?"

"I managed to startle him badly enough that his guard was down. A Blasting curse was all it took- he dissolved like smoke."

She nodded, sipping her tea. "I wish I could feel happier about it, but we've lost too many good people and the Death Eaters are still at large."

They turned the conversation to speculating about how the Ministry would react to this new development and what methods they would use to track down the remaining threats to Wizard and Muggle kind.

It never crossed Minerva's mind to question what he had told her, and when their meeting ended, she went back to her quarters to cry.

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A few hours later, while he was putting the early fees from parents of the return-students for next year in order, a Ministry Owl flew in the window he'd left open for it. It was weighted down by a large brown packet tied with string and secured closed with charms.

He took his letter-opener and cut the string before removing the charm. Using the edge of his fingernail, he slit it open along the top and tilted it to expel the contents onto his desk.

The cover sheet had the stamp of the Department of Records, and the manager's signature, a testy woman named Ingrid Black who'd nearly bitten his head off when he'd visited her office. Apparently, she didn't care about who he was or what his reputation was- in fact, she'd outright snapped at him to not 'waste her time'!

Normally he would have filed a complaint, but there is a certain sort of woman that you just don't cross.

The second page was the first of a paper-clipped section on Harry's nearest living relative. His eyebrows shot up as he realized that not only had he never heard of her, it was very likely that James hadn't either. She was his illegitimate half-sister, courtesy of James' father being unable to keep his hands off of his personal assistant of the time, a woman named Serena Lovegood.

Their child was 26 years old, working as an accountant in the Muggle world, and named Agnes Lovegood.

As he sat there, flabbergasted at this discovery since he'd always considered James' father Robert Potter to be far above this sort of indiscretion, another owl flew in his window and dropped off a letter. It was in a Muggle envelope, with a woman's curly handwriting on the front.

He opened it, curious, and pulled out the distinctly Muggle stationary with little rabbits in the corners of the paper. A distant part of him that'd he'd spent years quieting piped up in a corner of his mind that it liked the cheerfulness of the design. He forced himself to concentrate on what the letter had to say:

_Albus Dumbledore,_

_We have never met, but I now find myself in the position of introducing myself due to the tragedy. I am Robert Potter's daughter, not that he ever bothered to inform the rest of the world of that fact, and also the closest Magical relative of my nephew, Harry Potter, recently rendered an orphan, whom you are currently acting-guardian of. I am writing this letter to entreat you to clear a space in your schedule at the earlier possible convenience so as to complete the compulsory 'Approval' session sanctioned by our Ministry. _

_I eagerly await your reply,_

_Agnes Lovegood. _

His lips thinned as he set the letter down. He had absolutely no intention of handing over the Potter heir over to some bastard child, especially one that could potentially raise Harry in an environment that would give him a chance to surpass his parents. Both of his parents had been strong-willed and barely-controllable, not to mention that there was a possibility that the strange magical patterns Poppy had detected around him in his health check-up were warning signs of a strong magical core.

No, this could not be given a chance to develop. Harry would need to live as far from magic as possible during his formative years to stunt his ability to understand the unspoken schematics of it. Perhaps when he was older, he might re-consider, but for now Harry would be kept away from the likes of well-meaning witches like Agnes.

He flipped through the folder on Agnes until he found her living address and set it aside. He then moved on to the next paper-clipped section, which detailed Lily Potter's Muggle sister Petunia Dursley.

He would make arrangements with the Ministry to allow Harry to live with the Dursleys as soon as he had some sleep, and then he would dispatch someone discreet to dispose of Agnes Lovegood before she had a chance to make a bother of herself.

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And so this is how Rubeus Hagrid, shedding tears large enough to drown an ordinary fairy, came to be walking down Privet Lane late at night, a bundle in a basket held as delicately as a flower in his large hands.

Still blubbering, he set the basket on the front steps of what was to become his new home. Looking around and catching the sympathetic gaze of a housecat with markings very much like spectacles around its eyes, he got a nod of permission. Moving aside the letter of explanation from Dumbledore, he lifted a corner of the blanket and gently touched Harry's scarred forehead.

"Bye-bye, Harry. I'll see you when you come to school."

Replacing the blanket and letter, he stood and descended the trio of steps in one stride, joining a disguised McGonagall and very respectfully lifted her into the air and letting her settle herself into his coat pocket before straddling the flying bicycle that'd once upon a time belonged to Sirius Black.

"Good-bye…"

Rubeus was quite disconsolate by the time they returned to the school, and swiftly after parking the motorbike and leaving Minerva to her own devices, he found himself headed for the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade for a nice comforting gallon of lager.

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End chapter 2


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Petunia Dursley prided herself on her ability to keep a cool head no matter what happened, and it was this very character trait that had held together her marriage to Vernon. She loved him to pieces, but he could be rather emotional at times, even when she was the one pregnant with her little Dudley.

However, there were times when it was appropriate to lose one's cool. One of those situations was opening one's door in the morning to bring in the day's milk delivery and finding a basket likely to contain some slut's unwanted child.

"Vernon!"

He came rushing out as quickly as he was able to in the mornings, coffee mug in one hand. When he stopped suddenly to avoid bowling her over, some of the nearly-black liquid sloshed over the rim and burned his knuckles, making him hiss between his teeth.

"What is it, my love? Has something happened?"

"Just some twat has gone and left her unwanted bastard child on our very front step."

"What?!" He craned his neck to see the basket, choking on his coffee when he saw that she was right. There was, in fact, a basket. "Hey, there's letter on it."

"I can see that, Vernon." She snapped rather testily. "I don't care to read it- we're taking this child to the closest Child Services office I can find."

"We? I'm sorry, my love, but abandoned bastard or no abandoned bastard, I have to be at work in 45 minutes, the same as any other morning."

She sighed. "Oh, fine. I'll deal with it myself."

"I'm sorry, my darling." He kissed her cheek. "I'll make it up to you?"

"Fine. Now, go back to your breakfast. I don't want you to be late."

He smiled and kissed her cheek again, lumbering back down the hallway and finishing off his coffee. She sneered down at the basket before hefting it, balancing it on one hip and using her other hand to grasp the pair of milk bottles. Closing the door with her unoccupied hip, she walked briskly into the living room to set the basket down on their new coffee table.

Depositing one of the bottles into the refrigerator, she opened the other one and poured herself a glass. It was just a little warm, the way she liked it.

Dudley gurgled for attention, thumping his baby fists against his plastic eating tray and kicking his feet in his chair. Setting down her glass, she went over and refilled his bowl with some applesauce, crooning to him that he was a big, hungry boy.

Once she made sure that he was satisfied hunger-wise, she wiped his face and set him in his playpen to occupy himself with his toys. He fiercely hugged his new teddy bear, grinning up at her.

She thumbed his nose affectionately before setting work cleaning up the breakfast things. In the background she could hear her husband getting ready to go, and when he cleared his throat behind her, she turned and tied his tie for him, pecking him on the lips.

"Have a nice day at work, love."

"I will. Take care of Dudley!"

"Of course."

When he was gone, she buried her elbows in soapy water and finished off the last of the dishes. Leaving them to air-dry, she stroked her son's silky hair, the same color as hers, and went into the living room.

Sighing, she reached out and gingerly picked up the envelope with two fingers. Her pupils dilated with fear when she realized that it was made out of thick parchment, and that there was medieval-style ink, no-doubt written using something as puerile as a bird's feather, spelling out her name and address.

Trembling now, she sank down into the sofa, laying the envelope on the coffee table.

She looked at it, and then at the floral pattern of her house dress. Suddenly, still trembling from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, enveloped as they were in comfortable slippers, she pulled down the blinds and closed the drapes as tightly as she could, rushing to do the same thing in every room of the lower level.

Dudley squealed happily, clapping his hands at seeing her rushing around. She scooped him up, not wanting to leave him alone, and ran up the stairs faster than she had since she found out she was pregnant nearly 2 years ago and wanted to tell her husband.

Once the upstairs was completely darkened as well, she lit some lamps and descended the stairs to the living room, bouncing Dudley on her hip to keep him from getting bored and consequently throwing a tantrum.

She sat down on the sofa and held her son tightly in her arms, his head pressed between her breasts, and then she opened the letter at last.

_Dear Dursleys,_

_I apologize for delivering such bad news so callously, but your sister Lily Potter nee Evans and her husband James Potter were recently murdered, rendering their one-year-old son Harry an orphan. Since you are his closest relatives, he is now yours to raise. I am sorry for your loss and sure that that you will the best family that Harry needs now._

_Thank you so much for your charity._

_Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Warlock_

She folded the letter, its green ink seeming to be subtly menacing, and replaced it in its envelope. The underlying message of the letter had been that they didn't have a choice in this matter, and knowing their kind, they would be watching her. She then folded her hands and looked very hard at the basket. Strangely enough, the child she now knew to be her nephew hadn't awakened or so much as stirred (that she was aware of) despite the time of day. Either the child was still sleeping, or just wasn't hungry.

Dudley gurgled, reaching down to grab his own socked foot and pull it up towards his head. She smiled and stroked his little legs before setting him on the floor next to the couch, where he rolled around making delighted sounds.

Feeling like she was about to thrust her hand into a nest of vipers, she pulled back the top fold of the blanket concealing the infant's face from her, and then the next when she found him covered more than expected.

His face finally came into view, and he was asleep as she'd expected. His little sighing breaths sounded far too much like Dudley's for her comfort, and she sneered at the bandage around his forehead.

"Well, Harry, since I don't want silly people coming in here threatening my family, we are going to have to get used to each other." She resisted the urge to pet his little button nose, replacing a single layer of blanket over him and hefting the basket. "Come on, I'm going to warm up some milk for you just in case. The last thing I want is to hear you crying."

The kitchen ceiling was the first thing Harry saw at the Dursleys, and it was going to be something that he saw quite a bit.

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There was a faint thrumming noise in the background, almost like the after-sounds classical instruments with strings make, and faint though it was, it was what roused him from his stupor. Consciousness fluttered with the flippancy of an ash-gray butterfly into his mind.

His eyes blinked open, blurrily observing the shapes swirling around him in a psychedelic swirl of color and fuzzed shapes. He realized that this was because he wasn't wearing his glasses and made to grope for them, only to find that he couldn't convince his arm to move.

Trying his best to stay calm, since that was what an Auror was supposed to be in strange situations, he strained his ears. From what he could hear, he was alone except for the thrumming, which sounded very much like the noises of heart-monitors and various other sensory-tracking machines used in St. Mungo's. His wrist ached slightly, feeling the IV penetrating his skin and making the section of his mind instinctively against anything violating him ache from the urge to pull it out. Judging from the strained feeling in his pelvis, he was also outfitted with a catheter.

What happened? Why couldn't he move?

And most importantly, where was Lily?

James began hyperventilating; his heart monitor's thrumming increasing in synchronization. His eyes frantically spun in his head, trying to take in and make sense of the blurred shapes around him. He was aware of a door opening and a large shape dressed in white looming over him.

He tried to speak and found that he couldn't do anything more than gurgle.

"There, there now! Calm down, lovely." Someone was smoothing his hair back from his forehead, murmuring to him until he calmed down. "Come, let's fix you up. I knew that new girl wouldn't get the dosages right, the stupid bint."

And then the sucking sound of the IV bag being changed filtered through his wandering attention, and he knew, through some animal instinct, that there was something in that fluid that was going to hurt him. He trembled, which was all that his weakened state allowed, and was forced to let it happen without a fight.

Already, his eyes slipped closed and his heart monitor evened out to its previous lullaby-like sound, soothing him further and further from consciousness.

He would not wake again for years.

In a high-security, and very, very private ward meant for the criminally insane within St. Mungo's, James Potter lived, forgotten or believed dead by anyone outside that might have come to his aid.

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In a quiet accounting office in Wales, Agnes Lovegood tried desperately to concentrate on her work, and found herself repeatedly unsuccessful. She did have a good reason for being so distracted, though.

All of her life, she had felt unloved and unwanted by everyone but her mother, who was having a pretty hard time of it herself while trying to raise a child alone and without the support of family. The Lovegood clan was large and sprawled across the world, and no two of them were alike in thinking, or so she had thought before her mother told her that the majority of them suddenly developed strict moral codes when she asked them for help after discovering that she was pregnant. To make matters worse, the father, formerly her employer, had done absolutely nothing to support her. Agnes always carried a grudge in her heart against Robert Potter for that, even though he was long dead.

And now, years of being ignored and shunned in the Wizarding world behind her, she was going to become a mother, and to her half-brother's child! She wasn't sure how she could explain why this was so exciting to her when she was well aware of how much pain her own mother went through raising her alone, but ever since discovering that she was unable to have children herself, she'd been longing for one. There was that pull in all humans to have what they can't, after all.

Shaking her head, she got up and went into the office kitchen to make herself some tea.

Blanche, the French intern, smiled at her and she smiled back. Her good mood might be distracting her, but at least it was going to improve her relationships with her co-workers.

When she returned to her office a few minutes later, moving slowly so she wouldn't spill her tea on herself, she discovered a strange man standing in it, looking at her personal pictures. There was one of her dead mother and another of her boyfriend, as well as some nature scenes that she photographed when on holiday.

"Um, can I help you?"

"Close the door." He said without looking at her.

Very confused and slightly frightened now, she obeyed and went around him to sit at her desk. "Now, what can I help you with?" She smiled, her good mood rising up again. This man was probably lost and thought that she was someone she wasn't since their office set-up was a little strange and prone to confuse newcomers.

Instead of answering, he raised his wand and said, "Avada Kedavra!"

All records of Agnes Lovegood ever existing were burned and obliviated from the minds of all but her family members, none of whom were on speaking terms with her and made no inquiries when she vanished off the face of the earth.

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With very little ceremony, eight years passed.

Dudley was out enjoying the summer weather with some of his little friends, and Petunia was just sorted through her knitting basket for another ball when she heard the crash in the kitchen.

Bolting to her feet, she raced to the kitchen and stared in shocked incomprehension at the tableau before her. The boy stood there, frozen in fear, a large piece of her favorite Tiffany's vase in his hands. That had been a wedding present from her parents before they passed away, and was one of the only things she had left of them.

"What…?" Her shock faded, leaving nothing but boiling rage. She stalked over to her nine-year-old nephew, eyes wild. "How could you!? After all I have done for you, you repay me with this!"

He quavered, obviously torn between the desire to run and the desire to apologize. He settled for slowly backing away from her towards the door, stammering, "I-I-I'm sorry, Aunt Petunia. It was wet, and it…it slipped…"

She charged over to him, wrenching the piece of glass out of his hand and slicing it in the process. She didn't notice.

"Now you listen to me, you little brat!" She gripped his small shoulders tightly enough to make him tremble and wince. Feeling her rage surging for more purchase on her actions, she viciously dug her fingernails, freshly varnished and filed, into the skin. He whimpered. "Your parents didn't love you, their freakish friends didn't want you, and I don't want you! Nobody does and nobody ever will, just like no one will ever love you. Do you know why this is, Harry?"

He was crying now, but he shook his head. "No, aunt Petunia."

"Because you are a worthless little _freak!" _she suddenly shook him and then released him with enough force to make him stumble and trip on the rolled-up cuff of his jeans. "Now get out of my sight! I don't want to see you again for the rest of the day. I will not be responsible for my actions if you cross me."

When he didn't leave immediately, she snarled and slapped him clear across the face with the flat of her palm. The sound resonated through her blood-filled head, making her feel a little faint. "Go!"

He nodded again and ran out of the room with a funny half-limp, a distant sob the last she heard of him before the screen door slapped shut behind him.

"Little bastard." She hissed, going over to the refrigerator. She opened the freezer and dug out the ice cream, fishing a spoon out of the drawer. Looking down at the pieces of glass, she noted that a large section seemed to be missing from the mess but shrugged it off. The sofa, a long afternoon to herself, and her favorite soap opera were waiting for her.

He could go rot for all she cared, the little prick.

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One of the pieces of glass was still in his pocket, and it bumped against his thigh as he ran. When he was scared or upset, he often ran to one of his hiding places and stayed there until he calmed down or Dudley stopped looking for him, so it was only natural for him to do so now.

He ran out of breath, his chest heaving and breaths hitching as his eyes watered. Dudley always said that crying was for sissies even though he cried himself, so Harry wiped the tears away guiltily. There was no one around to see him since he'd taken the 'safe' way to the park, which was a roundabout route along the backs of houses and through some small bunches of trees that worked well as cover. He was still paranoid, though.

Why was he so pathetic? Couldn't he do anything right? He knew his family didn't like him very much, but now he knew that they hated him, and that was unbearable. They weren't the cleverest or the nicest people, but they were still all that he had and he'd long fantasized about someday doing something wonderful enough that they would love him like they loved Dudley.

The glass pricked his leg, and his self-hate surged up violently, spurred on by a new idea. The best way to change behavior was to have it accompanied by a physical reaction, like petting a dog when it did what it was supposed to and tapping its nose when it didn't…

He swallowed, feeling nervous for a moment before the rage swept it away. Childish hands reaching into his roomy pocket, he pulled out the glass and looked at it for a moment before cautiously squeezing his bleeding hand around it. At first nothing happened, so he squeezed tighter until the glass started to puncture his skin, the amount of blood dripping from his hand suddenly increasing to more of steady oozing than droplets.

It looked gross and he choked from the pain, starting to cry again, although the tears were hotter and angrier this time. Since he didn't think that cutting his already-injured hand further was going to get the message across to his sub-conscious, he clumsily rolled up his sleeve and made several jagged slashes. He hissed through his teeth, which he'd clenched. It hurt quite badly, but maybe this would teach him to not be so careless in the future.

He started walking again, heading for the park.

Shaking and hugging his knees, Harry sat under his favorite tree of the park ten minutes later, which was deserted of all except for a couple of toddlers and an elderly woman watching over them. Looking at him, it was hard to believe that he was all of nine years old because he was frightfully thin, one of those boys doomed to be a 'late bloomer', the boy picked on in locker rooms for being shorter than his peers.

His arm was bleeding rather badly now, and it was starting to scare him. He'd been pressing down on it with his shirt like he'd been trained to in a school first-aid class, but it wasn't working since the cuts were deeper than he'd thought they would be while making them, and right along his forearm, where he could see his blue veins through his skin.

Maybe he should go to the hospital?

He shook his head at his own question, feeling a little dizzy afterwards. If he went to the hospital, it would cost a lot of money, and Uncle Vernon was always telling him about how much money they were wasting on him, so going would just make them both really mad at him. And since Aunt Petunia was already upset, they might punish him extra-badly.

He sighed and tried to get up to go home since the sun was setting, discovering vaguely that he couldn't. There was a sneaking feeling in the back of his mind that he should be a little more concerned about this, but he couldn't feel very much of anything. His stomach growled.

His neck weakened and his head sagged against his chest. He began to feel exhausted, like he was a car and someone was steadily pumping the fuel out of him. A laugh bubbled out of him at the thought, cutting off when a sharp stab of pain came from his arm.

Consciousness rushed away from him and he slumped onto his side, unseen by the departing matron and her grandchildren.

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End chapter 3


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

There was a horrifying sensation of falling a very, very long way before he landed, flat on his face, on cold granite floor. He blinked tears from the impact out of his eyes and struggled to sit up, surprised to find that he could and that he was no longer bleeding profusely. He was still hungry, though.

"What…?" He sat up straight, looking around him wide-eyed. "Where is this place?"

He'd just missed landing on a thick Persian rug by inches, clear proof that there is no justice in this world, and there was a large desk on it in addition to a small sofa across from it with a stiff back and horse-hair cushions. It was lit by a fireplace and a chandelier hanging from the high ceiling, but there was an additional source of light that tinted everything a faint shade of red.

It was very warm despite the stone walls covered here and there with artwork. Feeling braver now that he knew he was alone, Harry explored the room, discovering that the bookshelves covering one wall of the room were so full of books that he couldn't even pull one out if he'd wanted to; they were packed too tightly.

Still looking around cautiously in case someone walked in on him, he snooped over by the desk. There were lots of papers on it, all different kinds and colors, most of them covered with either numbers, columns of numbers, or little diagrams with numbers next to them. It made absolutely no sense to him, but he looked anyway at a particular sheet of pale blue paper because its ink changed color every couple of seconds and he couldn't figure out how. Off to one side was a small stack of books, most with illegible titles, but he did distinguish the Divine Comedy amongst them.

Finally, getting bored of the desk, he went over to the window, peering out at the source of the reddish light. Instead of seeing the setting sun, as he was expecting, he saw a strange mountainous country completely bereft of green things- except for a scary-looking evergreen forest on the far edge of his sight, with black smoke drifting out of it every few seconds. The rest of the ground was pitted as if from acid, and deep grooves were carved into the rock.

Standing on tip-toe revealed that the grooves were in vague circular patterns, with the inner-most ring radiating heat-waves that made his eyes blurry. Once again, he wondered where the hell he was and how he'd gotten there.

His hip bumped something as he craned his head to a more extreme angle, and he saw that he was leaning against a small desk with drawers, not unlike a filing cabinet but more pretentious. On it was a Chinese vase that was swaying dangerously from him bumping its resting place and he squeaked, grabbing it and just preventing it from falling over in time.

A low hissing sound came from within the vase and his eyes widened. The top of a scaly head peered back at him from over the rim, and it flicked its tongue at the human child that dared to wake it from its peaceful nap.

"_Sorry_!" The child squeaked, backing away until he hit the larger desk.

"_It's alright- I was waking up anyway."_

The boy stared without blinking, quivering in place. _"Did…did you just talk?"_

"_Yes. This is very unusual, though, since people usually don't talk back when I address them."_

"_Oh." _He brightened now that it was clear that he wasn't about to be bitten. _"I'm Harry. What's your name?"_

"_Mammon; what are you doing in this office, Harry? How did you escape the pits?"_

Harry frowned, drawing his eyebrows together. "_What pits?"_

The snake seemed as frustrated as a snake could get without human features, and slithered out of the jar, down the carved wood table leg, and then paused just by Harry's feet. It was a particularly brilliant shade of green with faint violet markings in the shape of diamonds. Harry had never seen a snake colored like that before, Mammon seeming more like a thick necklace than a reptile from the way he gleamed and glittered in the red light.

Frozen again, certain that he was about to be attacked, Harry shrieked when, instead of biting him or crawling up his leg, the snake seemed to churn like a heat mirage and shifted into a human shape. The smell of smoke, fragrant and mind-numbing, lingered for a moment.

"The pits of Hell, kid. Which one were you assigned to and what are you doing out of it?"

Hell. The word seemed to resonate through the room, making the supernatural landscape understandable as well as the heat…the talking serpent made a lot more sense as well. After all, if it wasn't for a talking serpent, humanity would have been a hell of a lot different.

"I thought you said your name was Mammon, not Satan!" He accused, forgetting himself and poking the snake-man in the chest. He became thoughtful, "But then, since you're a demon, I guess I should have expected you to lie…"

Someone cleared their throat behind him before he could embarrass himself further and he jumped, startled, leaping to his feet and doing his damnedest to look like he hadn't been snooping in a strange office or talking to a snake-man.

The new man raised both of his black eyebrows at him. "What are you doing out of the pits? How did you get in here?"

"I…uh…?"

He sighed, smoothing his hair out of his face. "I can assume that I'm not going to get a straight answer out of you like this. Let's just take this from the top, then. Please have a seat."

Harry obediently circled the desk and sat down on the sofa on the other side. It was as uncomfortable as it looked, and the horse-hair cushions were slippery and pricked at him through the seat of his trousers. When he tried to lean back so he wouldn't fall off, he smacked his head on the spiky carved wood that framed it.

Mammon winced in sympathy, now standing just behind the new Demon's chair, where he was sitting with his hands braced under his chin.

"Mammon, get me some paper that doesn't have our accounting information on it, please."

Rolling his eyes, the snake-man reached into his black suit jacket and pulled out a sheaf of paper. A second later and he placed a gleaming pen that looked almost dangerous in his superior's waiting palm.

"Thank you, Mammon. You may go until I need you again."

"Yeah, yeah…" the door closed silently behind him on well-oiled hinges, leaving Harry alone with the stranger. Unexpectedly, he reached across the desk, offering his hand to shake.

Harry cautiously shook it.

"I'm Lucifer, the one in charge down here. It's nice to meet you." He smiled charmingly, unscrewing the top of the pen and placing the nib at the top of the sheet of paper in front of him. "What's your name?"

"Harry Potter. Oh! It's nice to meet you too."

Lucifer smiled again. "And how old are you, Harry?"

"Nine and a half."

He got a raised eyebrow for that one. Lucifer set down his pen. "Harry, how did you end up _here _if you're only nine years old?"

"I don't really know. One minute I was bleeding in the park, and then I guess I fell asleep because when I woke up I was here." Helpless tears tried to fight their way out of his eyes but he screwed them up at the edges and held them off. Crying alone was bad enough without doing it in front of a Demon.

"You died, and came immediately here instead of passing through the judging process?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't remember anything else, so that must be it."

Lucifer sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Mammon! Come in here, please!"

The door burst open all by itself, like magic, and Mammon fell inside the room, a glass toppling out of his hand and rolling across the carpet until it was stopped by the sofa. Mammon hurried to stand up, smoothing down his trousers. "Yes, my lord?"

Harry stifled a laugh behind his hand.

"Please send a message to Uriel informing him that we have a little…" Lucifer looked at Harry askance, "problem on our hands."

"But why do I have to deal with it?" Mammon whined, sounding surprisingly childish.

"Because I said so!" Lucifer snapped. "I have enough on my hands with that plague going on in Brazil and the aftermath of that horrible war in Britain, not to mention our annual accounting, without having to deal with an underage accidental suicide case!"

"Okay, okay. Jesus, calm down. I'll go talk to him, but you owe me big-time for this; you're not the only one who gets scared of that guy."

Lucifer chewed on his lip, fiddling with his pen. "You that I wouldn't willingly force any of you into contacting him against your wishes-"

"I know, Lucifer. It's fine; you don't have to apologize. I'll send him here as soon as I can. Do you mind keeping the kid with you? I don't know where else we could stick him."

"We'll be waiting." He sighed, "The sooner this situation is dealt with, the better for all involved."

Mammon nodded and vanished in a puff of fragrant smoke.

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Harry had no idea how long he'd been sitting on that sofa, watching Lucifer do things with the strange papers covered with numbers and figures, but it was long enough for him to start feeling a little faint from hunger and some strain in his bowels.

He didn't want to disturb him, but he also didn't want to ruin the sofa by accident.

"Um…"

Lucifer looked up. "Yes?"

"I have to go to bathroom." Harry said in a rush, turning bright red.

Lucifer just looked at him blankly for a moment. "But you're not dirty; you're not even bloody."

"No, I don't need to take a bath, I have to _use the toilet."_

"But why?" Lucifer just didn't seem to be capable of understanding what he had to say. Before Harry could go into a scientific explanation of what it meant to relieve one's bowels, Lucifer continued, "That's like saying you're hungry. Bodily functions don't work down here."

"Actually, I am kind of hungry too. But I can wait! I just really, really need to use the toilet." On cue, his stomach grumbled.

Something dawned in the Demon's eyes and harry knew that he believed him now. "Look, I would love for you to be able to take care of that in a toilet too, but I'm afraid that we don't have any. However…well, there are the Forests of Lost Desires, if you think a tree would suffice."

"A tree would be fine, thank you." Officially more embarrassed than he could ever remember being short of that one time Dudley pulled his pants down at the playground at school, he slipped off of the couch and followed the Demon out of the office.

Instead of finding a hall or some kind of exterior room like he was expecting, they stood on top of a small stone platform with a polished railing around it, decorated with spikes and ironwork depicting various obscene and tortuous situations. There was a stone staircase built into the side of what Harry now knew to be the tower that housed the Devil's office, and Lucifer was already descending it rapidly.

Now that he wasn't completely terrified, Harry let himself get a good look at the Devil himself. He was quite willowy for a man, and his dark clothes made him blend slightly into the shadowed areas they passed by when not in the eternal red light.

Harry just knew that he would never be able to look at the color red the same again.

When they reached the foot of the staircase, Harry looked around in wonder. He could no longer distinguish the circles, but he could see the outer-most circle, represented by a perfectly smooth stone wall that curved off in the distance. The circles were a lot bigger up close and personal, and he could now hear a muffled roar of sound. As he strained his ears, a high-pitched scream penetrated the wall and other sounds, reverberating across his ears and down his spine in shivers.

Lucifer unexpectedly stopped and held out his hand. Cautiously, well aware of what this Demon could do to him, he took it.

His hand was surprisingly warm, and softer than a woman's.

"Don't be afraid, child. Their fate isn't yours." They were headed away from the wall now, across unnaturally even ground towards a sprawling forest straight ahead. Normally, when faced with a lush jungle, one expects to hear animal sounds coming from inside of it, but there weren't any, even after they'd advanced several feet inside.

Lucifer indicated a large tree. "I will wait here while you relieve yourself."

"Thank you!" Harry dashed off, leaving the Devil to scowl as a hangnail he hadn't noticed before.

When he returned, feeling much more relaxed, he discovered that another person had joined their little excursion. Striding out of trees was a large house cat, the kind that can both curl themselves into the tiniest of corners and yet inexplicably take over an entire couch, with fur so white it hurt to look at it.

Curious yellow eyes surveyed first Lucifer and then Harry himself.

"Go away, Asmodeus. We have the situation in hand. Come on, Harry." He held out his hand again, and Harry took it, surprised when his fingers were gently squeezed.

The trip back to the tower was looking more uneventful with each step they took, so Harry decided that now was the time to ask something that was bothering him.

"Excuse me, but what is going to be done with me? Where will I go, if not in the circles, or these 'pits' that Mammon mentioned?"

Lucifer looked down at him and smiled. "I can't make any promises, but I am fairly sure that we can arrange for you to return to your mortal body on earth."

Harry's eyes went so wide they almost popped out of his skull. "You…you can _do _that?!"

He laughed. "I can't, but I do know some people that can, if you ask them the right way. Here's a bit of advice: it's not what you ask, but how. Keep that in mind for the future."

They'd reached the stairs again, and the ascent was just as boring as the descent, or it would have been if Harry hadn't taken advantage of the height to inspect what he could see of the Circles. The widest, and closest, seemed to be filled with pits, just like he'd suspected, full of strange multi-colored (though they were predominantly red) flames. He could hear the screaming if he concentrated, and it was as blood-chilling the second time around as it'd been the first.

He was really happy that Lucifer didn't seem to think that the pits were where he belonged.

There was someone waiting for them when they re-entered the office, and Harry felt the wind get knocked out his lungs. He was swathed entirely in a black fur-trimmed robe with a hood that concealed his entire face and well over 6 feet tall, quite possibly over 7 as well. In his gloved hand was something that vaguely resembled a scythe, if farming instruments ever got menacing-looking.

"It is a pleasure to see you as always-" Lucifer began in the most respectful tone that Harry had heard from him so far, but the new man interrupted him brusquely.

"I don't have time for pleasantries today, Lucifer. This is him, then?"

"Yes. Won't you sit?"

"No, thank you. Please tell me everything you know about his case."

Lucifer took a deep breath. "He killed himself by accident, from what we've seen, and since he didn't know what he was doing or the ramifications of that, he was sent directly to my office. He didn't even pass through the usual judging process."

The dark man, or demon, Harry wasn't sure which, turned his hooded face to presumably size him up. Harry stood up straighter, unconsciously smoothing down his t-shirt.

"Hm. I'll have the Unusal Soul Department send him back. They'll be here within the next five minutes with their tools and they will tell you anything that you need to do to assist them." He sighed. "And please try to behave yourself. I don't want any sensitive innocents coming to me with tearful complaints about your temper this time."

"Of course, Uriel."

"I mean it. I will be very unhappy if I hear otherwise."

"I understand. Now, don't you have work to be doing right now, or did you want to have tea and catch up on the latest news from up in the Heavenly Realms-"

"Good-bye, Lucifer."

There was a flash of blinding light and then the man known as Uriel disappeared.

Lucifer groaned and sat down. "Oh god, I hope he wasn't actually upset, or else this could get really bad." He mumbled to himself picking up his pen and playing with it listlessly.

Harry, feeling the need to do something other than stand awkwardly by the door, came closer timidly until he had to circle the desk and gently touched the Devil's arm. "Hey, don't be sad. I'm sure that, even if he was angry, he's just having a bad day." With conviction he had no right to possess, he finished, "Everything will be alright."

"I hope you're right." He covered Harry's small hand with his own, still not looking at him. Harry could feel that he was tense.

Suddenly, something went '_BOOM!' _

The whole tower shook and thick smoke filled the room, smelling heavily of flowers and something that reminded Harry of the incense sticks his hippie-like neighbor liked to burn. Aunt Petunia used to call them 'Satanic', which he supposed was a bit ironic since he was fairly sure that these weren't Demons.

When the smoke cleared, three young-looking figures stood there. They wore white garments of indistinguishable make, and massive wings were tightly furled against their backs. As he watched, they seemed hesitant to touch anything in the office, keeping their limbs as tightly against themselves as possible.

They looked almost frightened, though there was disgust under their expressions.

"You must be the once-great Lucifer." One of them boldly said, his or her voice sounding more like music than someone's vocal chords. The words themselves were quite rude, but the way the Angel said them was not. "I am Chael, and my companions are Tarmiel and Rex."

Lucifer nodded stiffly. "Would you like to perform the ritual here or outside, where you will have more maneuverability?"

"Outside, please."

Slipping Harry's shaking hand into his own, Lucifer guided them outside to use the stairs for the third time. But this time, instead of descending them manually, Harry felt his body disintegrate.

There was half-second of absolute terror when he was surrounded by darkness and formless as an echo, and then he reassembled into his familiar shape.

"Sorry about that." Lucifer said softly. "I should have warned you. I really want to get this over, though; I hate having their kind in my realms."

Harry nodded, though he didn't understand what was wrong with the Angels. They seemed nice enough to him, if a little hard to look at without squinting. Speaking of the Angels, they weren't taking the stairs or using the strange 'smoke' technique of traveling.

Looking up when a rush of wind whipped his hair into a frenzy, Harry saw the trio gracefully circling the tower twice in the time that it took them to fly to the ground. They landed on their feet and promptly started taking things out of their pockets and passing them to each other.

"Chalk, please?"

"Salt over here would be lovely, thanks."

Harry watched, dumbfounded, as they started scribbling on the stone floor, of all things, and sprinkling salt in circles around it. When he looked silently up at Lucifer, the Demon just grinned down at him and mouthed 'Angel secrets'.

"Okay, we're ready for you, mortal." One of them sang, stepping cautiously towards them and holding out his hand. Harry didn't want to let go of Lucifer, but he didn't know how else to stay here a little bit longer-

"Wait a second!"

The Angel paused, puzzled.

"If this is the after-life, can I send a message to someone who's dead?" Harry directed his question to both the Angel, he didn't know which one, and Lucifer.

"Theoretically, yes. It depends on who the person is and what the message contains." Lucifer answered quietly, eyes distant. "Was there someone you wanted to contact?"

Harry thought hard. "My mother, Lily Potter."

"Alright, wait here a second and I'll get you some paper. If you don't mind waiting a little longer?" he tacked on at the end, looking over at the Angels. They shrugged simultaneously.

"We don't mind- let the poor boy talk to his mother."

Lucifer turned to smoke, leaving Harry alone with the Angels. They smiled encouragingly at him, and he was reminded of his first school teachers, the kind that used to read large storybooks with the pictures facing him and his classmates

He smiled nervously back. When he'd stalled for time, the only thing on his mind was prolonging the amount of time that he could stay away from his Aunt Petunia and her bad mood, but now, knowing that he was going to get a chance to communicate with his own mother, drunken harlot while alive as his Aunt said or not, was mind-blowing.

What would he say? What could he say?

Lucifer appeared before he could make up his mind, handing him a small notepad of purple paper and a pen. "Please keep it brief."

Harry nodded mutely. He was just going to wing this impromptu-style. He clicked the pen on and started writing,

_Dear Mum,_

_I know that you probably remember me a lot better than I remember you, but I wanted to say hello to you now that I have the chance. I really wish that I could meet you in person instead of just sending a note like this, but this is the best I can do. Just pretend that I can be there and that I'm giving you a big hug._

_I don't care what my Aunt Petunia says about you; I still love you and think that you would have been a wonderful parent. Say 'hi' to dad for me._

_Your son, _

_Harry. _

He clicked the pen closed and handed the notepad back to the Devil, who smiled and patted his head. "I'll make sure that she gets it, and if she replies, it will find its way to you on earth. It was nice meeting you."

Harry impulsively hugged him and then went over to the Angels before he could be on the receiving end of a smack.

"Stand here in the middle of the circle." Chael directed, indicating the center of their salt and chalk creation. He did so, and gasped as a ripping sensation went through him. The view of Hell that he had started to swirl and blacken around the edges, making him more disoriented.

Just before everything went completely blank, he saw the housecat from earlier sitting by Lucifer, his tail waving lazily back and forth and his large yellow eyes boring into him. It was intense, and Harry felt like he was naked under that look.

His whole body, or soul, jerked and he lost consciousness.

00000

End chapter 4


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

The ripping feeling seemed to last forever, like every part of him was being jerked away from the other parts. He started to doubt that he had ever even been whole in the first place, but then the sensation shifted, and he could distinctly feel himself being re-assembled. It tickled and sometimes he got something similar to an electric shock, but gradually he became more aware of the completed sections of his body.

His eyes opened hesitantly, and he instantly was blinded by what had been a mere reddish glow while his eyes were closed.

"Ah…" He moaned quietly in pain, reaching up to shield his tender eyelids from the harsh fluorescent lights. Something tugged painfully in his wrist, and he squinted to see that there were grotesque tubes protruding from his arm and taped into place, connecting him to a plastic sack on a stand that he faintly remembered as an I.V.

Before he could get his bearings, he heard his Aunt Petunia hiss, "Boy!"

He blinked slowly in her direction, swallowed, and tried to speak but his throat was too dry. Thankfully, she seemed to understand, and leaned close to whisper, "I don't know what you were doing in that park by yourself, but in no way are you going to blame this on me and my family, alright?"

He nodded, his chin brushing against his hospital smock. She was obviously frazzled, and he didn't want to upset her.

A nurse walked in just then for what must have been a regular check-up and smiled when she saw that he was awake. He was given some ice chips and left alone to acclimate himself while a doctor was fetched.

Aunt Petunia, after making sure that she wouldn't be needed anymore, folded up the gardening magazine that she'd been reading and also left.

He was left alone in the hospital bed, a white wall to one side and curtain on the other. On the other side of it, someone was moaning in pain and it made him wince every time their moans heightened to whimpers of agony.

Just when he was starting to panic a little bit from the grating sounds of the machines and the pained sounds beside him, the door opened, revealing a man in a white coat with a reassuring smile on his face.

Harry shrank back a little bit.

000

An instrument began spinning crazily mid-air, floating a good five inches off of the desk in Albus Dumbledore's office, making him jump.

"Oh, what is it now?" He muttered, grabbing it and fiddling with a screw on the side so that it made an internal 'clicking' noise. Some more gears shifted inside of it, and then a ghostly image of letters appeared in the air, spelling out the words:

'_Young Pre-Student Deceased'_

Albus frowned, white brows drawing together in both confusion and irritation. This hadn't happened in years, and he was curious. He twisted a few more gears, and then said clearly, "Pre-Student's name."

Another clicking sound later, the ghostly letters shifted to say:

'_Harry James Potter'_

"James' child? How did that happen?" Albus muttered, his wrinkled fingers fiddling with the instrument until it made a nasty grating noise of metal on metal that made his spine tingle unpleasantly. "Come on…tell me…" He grumbled, tinkering with the exposed controls of the nick-knack.

There was no further information forthcoming from the device despite his best efforts, and with a sigh, the Headmaster acknowledged that he would have to look into the situation himself to fill in the logs book.

The logs book was something invented by the Ministry of Magic in the 17th century to ensure the health and living conditions of all of Hogwarts students and would-be students. The book also contained each student's health records, school records, any major personal upheaval, and a short paragraph on their personality. These logs had proved invaluable in numerous situations in the past, and the Ministry was rather enthusiastic about having all of the information written down equally amongst the students.

And since there was never an official designation of the job to anyone, since it was self-updating in all accounts except for life and death situations, the task fell onto the Headmaster's shoulders.

He stood slowly, circled his desk, and paused to set the device back down. The fireplace activated his fire-call automatically, and he stuck his head into the flames to speak to Minerva.

"Minerva? Minerva!" He raised his voice, realizing that she'd either decided to have a nap at her desk or was lost in her grading.

"Yes, Albus? What's the matter?" Her head came into view for him.

"I am going out this afternoon on an errand and I don't know when I'll be back, so I am afraid that I cannot have tea with you this evening. I offer you my sincerest apologies for cancelling yet again." He let some regret seep into his voice at the end, and smiled ruefully at her.

"Oh, that's quite alright, Albus. I anticipated that something might come up, so I invited Severus to join me in your place." She smiled back. "I wish you well on your errand."

"Thank you." He exited the fireplace and smoothed himself down. He really was getting too old to deal with this kind of shit.

He disapparatated, reappearing in an inconspicuous alley between a florist and a shoe repair shop, and spared a moment to transfigure his soft red robes into a plain brown Muggle suit.

000

The ensuing health check-up with the doctor was more embarrassing to Harry than he was willing to admit. The doctor asked him a range of very personal health habits, and steadily fed him ice chips throughout to keep his throat wet, and then the man left.

A police man was the next person to enter the room, and even though he smiled, Harry couldn't help but know that this conversation, or interrogation if you wanted to be honest, was going to be the catalyst for change in his life.

"Are you Harry Potter?"

"Yes, sir."

He smiled. "Lovely. My name is Mike and I will be just asking you some questions so we can figure out what happened." He pulled out a small wire-bound notepad from his front pocket and a pen, which he clicked on and presumably used to scribble the date at the top of the page. "Now, you are in the hospital because of some serious cuts that caused you to nearly bleed to death, correct?"

Harry nodded. "Yes. They hurt a lot."

"Do you remember how you got those cuts?" he pointed to the bandages covering Harry's forearms.

"It was an accident!" He blurted before he could think about his answer. It would sound crazy if he told the police man what had really happened, especially the part about going to Hell, but if he didn't say something, then he would get in trouble. "I broke a vase at home, and the glass from it hurt me when I tried to clean it up. And then I thought that my Aunt would be angry with me when she found her broken vase, so I ran away to the park."

The man stopped smiling. "Why did you think that going to the park was necessary?"

"I was scared." Harry shrugged and then winced, biting his lip. The Police man's eyes went soft, and his smile returned.

"Why would you be afraid of your Aunt?"

"I…" Harry swallowed. Aunt Petunia had told him not to get her in trouble, and if he let her down, then she would be so mad that she might do something horrible to him, or leave him to live on the streets. "It was a very special vase, and I was afraid that she would be upset. I don't like seeing her upset, so I thought that if I wasn't there, I wouldn't have to see her sad."

"But you said that you were afraid that she would be angry. Which one made you afraid, her anger or her sadness?"

Harry squirmed a little bit in the hospital bed. "Um…"

"Well? Don't lie to me, Harry."

"I was afraid and upset after she yelled at me, so I left." Harry whispered in a rush, crossing his arms even though it hurt, trying to become one with the hospital bed.

"So now she already knew about the vase before you went to the park?" Mike raised his eyebrows and put down his notepad. "Harry, you need to get your story straight. Like I said, don't lie. You're not saving anybody by doing so, and you're just making my job that much harder."

"Yes sir."

"You're stalling." Mike sighed, looked down at his notepad, and then tore off the top sheet and handed the pad to Harry. "Here, why don't you write down what you remember and then number the events in the order that they actually happened. That way you don't have to say it out loud."

He accepted the notepad and pen, and started scribbling. \

_Broke Aunt's vase_

_Cut hands on vase_

_Yelled at by Aunt_

_Smacked by Aunt_

_Ran away to park_

When he stopped writing, Mike leaned over the railing of his bed to see what he'd written. "Thank you, Harry, that's very helpful. Now…can you tell me what happened after you went to the park? I find it a bit hard to believe that you were that badly cut and managed to make it all the way to the park without your Aunt noticing before you left or you fainting."

Harry didn't answer, pensively twisting the sheet between his fingers.

"Harry? Is there something else?" He scooted closer, carefully reaching out and taking one of his hands. "Did something happen at the park, some bullies maybe?"

He shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it; it was so stupid."

Mike groaned quietly. "I'll tell you what- why don't you whisper it really fast, and I'll see what I can hear? That way you can try and keep it secret while still answering my question. Please, Harry?" he coaxed, running his hand up his arm and stroking his messy hair.

There was no reaction to his plea at first, but then Harry said in a rush, "I cut myself because I wanted to remind myself never to be so clumsy ever again."

Mike choked, and then stared for a full fifteen seconds at Harry's reddening profile before recovering himself and getting off of the tiled floor next to the boy. He flopped back into his chair and rubbed at his face, the stubble tickling his hand.

"You just need to nod or shake your head in answer to this. Did you almost kill yourself, with the intent to commit suicide?"

"No!" Harry's body surged partially-off of the bed, and he shrieked, clutching at his arms and biting his lip. "It hurts…"

"If you weren't trying to commit suicide, why would you do something like that to your own body? What were you thinking?" Michael was ashamed to say that he was losing his professional cool, and starting to react in inappropriate emotional ways to this, but he really couldn't bring himself to step away from the issue. This boy wasn't even ten years old yet, and he was already in the hospital for self-inflicted injuries?

Harry was crying now, his sobs shaking his body. "I'm sorry! I was upset, and I couldn't think straight. I just wanted to know that I was doing something to make myself a better nephew who wouldn't be such a disappointment. I just cut too deep, that's all."

Mike spluttered. "Oh, and this would be okay if you didn't cut deep enough to almost kill yourself?"

He swiped at his eyes with his sleeve, meeting his eyes properly for the first time since they'd been introduced. "I said I was sorry, alright?"

"It is not alright, Harry, but we're going to move on before I raise my blood pressure any more."

"Okay." Harry whispered, sniffling.

"Good. Now, it says here that your Aunt smacked you, which I think accounts for the facial bruising since it is roughly in the shape of a handprint, now that I look at it." He squinted at him for a second before writing something next to Harry's note. "Does she usually smack you after you've broken something?"

"Yes, or she has me skip a few meals." Harry shrugged, started to look more composed by the second. "I'm lucky to have anyone to take care of a freak like me at all, so I don't mind. I deserve it, anyway."

Mike pinched the bridge of his noses and took a breath. "Do you have any cousins or siblings living with her as well?"

"There's my cousin Dudley."

"And how is he punished when he does something wrong, such as breaking a vase like you did?"

Harry looked confused. "Dudley never gets punished. He's not a freak."

"What makes you a 'freak'?"

"I don't know for sure, but it has something to do with my parents. They died in a car crash when I was a baby, and my aunt says they were worthless drunks." Harry looked very unhappy about this, but didn't say anything else.

"Whether your parents were drunks or not doesn't mean anything, Harry. I'm sorry, but you won't be going home with the Dursleys when you're done here." Mike closed his notepad and clicked his pen off, tucking both of them back into his front jacket. He stood, adjusted his trousers, and made to leave.

"What do you mean?" Harry called after him just before he could leave and wrinkled his nose adorably, confused. "Where am I going to go?"

"Somewhere nice." Mike smiled over his shoulder at him, though it was forced, and left him alone.

000

The Child Services Agency informed him that Harry Potter was very much alive and currently having a foster family found for him while he was recovering in the hospital. He thanked the helpful lady behind the desk and left, satisfied now that he knew that his student had merely grazed death, not been swallowed by it.

Once again safely in his office, he arranged for a Wizarding couple that had been looking for a child to apply for the position, and went back to his usual duties, satisfied that this was out of his hands for the time being.

Two days later, he was sent a message by the couple, both now very angry with him for getting their hopes up. When he inquired as to why they were so upset, the woman replied,

"The child was already set up with a new guardian by the time we got there! You promised us that the child we've always wanted would be this one, but you let us down!"

Seeing that they were both visibly on the verge of taking legal action against him, he wiped their memories and sent them away, sending a note to a slightly disreputable character by the name of Mundungus Fletcher, asking him to find out who the new guardian of one Harry Potter was. It wouldn't do to have the child of two powerful magic-users in the home of a Muggle after all.

Mundungus replied to his note several hours later, with a request for payment in exchange for the favor. According to the missive, which included a small photograph of a non-descript man on the taller side with brown hair and forgettable features wearing a Muggle suit, the man was a Wizard named Bronislav Polski with no connections to the War at all. According to this Polski man, he sensed that the child was Magical while tending to a patient nearby the Potter child and adopted him in order to protect the Statute of Secrecy.

Dumbledore paid Fletcher, and leaned back in his chair, all thoughts of his future student fading into the background.

000

The door opened, and a pair of plain brown clogs came into his line of sight that looked comfortable for long hours on one's feet.

"Who're you?" Harry asked, looking up from where he'd been staring at the floor of the hospital room. The nurse had said that he was going to be let to leave now, with his new guardian, and he was a little bit nervous. He'd never dreamed that he would one day have someone other than the Dursleys as his family, and hoped that this person didn't think that he was a bad child because he'd hurt himself this badly. There was a brown package on the bed beside him that contained all of his things from the Dursleys, and he tried to avoid touching it.

The man was tall, and his brown hair needed a trim. "Hello there, Harry." He squatted immediately, bringing them to eye-level with one another. His eyes were nice-looking, with little bits of green in the brown. He smiled. "I'm your new guardian, Bronislav Polski."

Harry tilted his head. "You have a funny name!"

"I know. If you can't pronounce it, that's okay. You can just call be Broni, or even just B." He lightly touched Harry's shoulder, squeezing slightly. "I might be a stranger right now, Harry, but I promise you that I will be the best parent to you that I can be. Please tell me if you do or do not like something, whether its food or your new room or some kind of schoolwork, because I value your opinion and need it to take better care of you; is that alright?"

Harry nodded shyly, picking absently at the bandages covering his arms. Bronislav noticed and gently pulled his hands away from the white cloth. "Please don't do that. You might damage them, and then you'd have to come back to this nasty place."

"You don't like it either?" Harry asked hopefully, looking up.

"I might be a doctor, but I don't like hospitals, so that's a yes. They always smell nasty."

Harry giggled, relaxing at last. "You're funny."

"Good! Laughing is good for sick people, so I'll be sure to make an idiot of myself just for you." He straightened and offered his hand to him. "Come on, kid, let's get out of here."

Well aware that this was going to be the first day of a new life for himself, Harry slipped his smaller hand into his and smiled sweetly when it was squeezed. They were half-way down the hall when he remembered his clothes and tugged on Bronislav's hand until he stopped.

"What's the matter?"

"I left my clothes back in the room."

"Oh! Well, it's a good thing you remembered." He didn't look angry at all, and led his blushing charge back to the room to collect the package, which he decided was heavy and carried for him. Harry was secretly grateful that he didn't have to carry it.

"Right now I live in an apartment, but I am taking some time off of working in a few months once I've finished up here, so we'll buy a house someplace just as soon as we can." He swung their joined hands, and Harry could have floated right off of the ground. Nobody had ever held his hand before.

000

Bronislav's apartment was on the 4th floor, and had a front room with a counter dividing it from the kitchen, with three doors against the walls.

"Welcome to your new home, for now." Bronislav led Harry to the couch and sat him down. "I'm going to make some tea, and then I'll show you where you'll be sleeping while we stay here."

Harry nodded to show that he understood, and almost started picking at his bandages again before he remembered not to and folded his hands together to make sure that he wouldn't.

There was a coffee table in front of the couch he sat on, with lots of books piled up along it, some with bright pictures on them. There was one with a pyramid on the front about Egypt, another with poppies that was about flowers, and one with rows of the same photograph in different bright colors with the word 'Warhol' across the front in black letters.

Bronislav came back with two mugs, one slightly smaller than the other with a blue stripe on it, and set them down on the coffee table on top of the book that said 'Warhol' on the cover.

He noticed what Harry was looking at and smiled. "This is your house now, so if you like my books, you are allowed to look at them as long as you put them back where you found them, and let me know if you rip a page by accident so I can tape it."

"Alright." Harry agreed softly, getting a smile.

"You're a quiet one, Harry. Come with me and let me show you the rest of my lovely abode." He waited for Harry to climb off of the couch, and led the way to the closest door, which was a bathroom. "Since there are two of us now, I'll knock before I use it to see if you're inside, and you should do the same."

"Sure."

"Thanks. That'll save us some grief later on." The next door was just a storage closet, with boxes sealed with packing tape taking up one side of it and coats on the other. "This is just a closet, but once I buy you a jacket, you can hang it in here."

They moved towards the last door, which his guardian opened with a flourish that made him laugh. "And this, finally, is the bedroom. Since I don't have an actual bedroom for you, you'll be sleeping in here and I'll be out there on the couch in case you need me."

"I can sleep on the couch!" Harry protested, not wanting to make his new guardian sleep out there all by himself.

"No, it's okay. I want to make you comfortable, since this is a really big change for you. Besides, the couch is nice and soft like the bed, so I won't have any trouble." He advanced farther into the room, indicating the chest of drawers. "I cleared out half of the drawers so you'll have a place to put your things."

Harry felt overwhelmed by all of this and nodded weakly, wavering a little bit in place.

"Harry, are you feeling alright?"

"Yes…I just need to get used to this." He blushed. "This is very different from my old house."

"I know, I know…" Bronislav rubbed his head, which was nice and soothing. "And you've had such a long day. You must be tired. Why don't you take a little nap?"

Harry bobbed his head and climbed awkwardly onto the bed, and pulled off his shoes. Bronislav stood poised by the door, watching with a smile.

"If you need anything, just call for me."

He flicked off the light.

000

End chapter 5

(gasps for air) FINALLY!


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

The ceiling was beautiful, 19th century cupids frolicking in rose gardens and the usual half-forgotten symbolism twisted into the seemingly innocent shapes of birds and butterflies. It was supported by four strong oak-paneled walls, false pillars carved into the surface of them and gilded expertly by professional hands. In the far corner of the room was a wardrobe with one door open, revealing purpled shadow shapes instead of distinct images of the clothes hung inside. Not that he minded, since none of the clothes were his.

It was more interesting to him to examine the room that he'd spent the night in rather than the five lazy nudes sprawled around the room on the various sofas and beds, two of them quietly discussing what they wanted to eat for breakfast, that he'd spent it _with_.

"Asmodeus, is there any food here? I'm starved!"

He took a moment to answer even though he'd heard her question perfectly. "There is a blue bell-pull next to the door. Pull it and, I'm assuming, someone will come up to ask what you would like."

"Ah, I see it now." She chirped, and in his peripheral sight he saw a pinkish blob shift and walk, unashamed of her nakedness, to tug on it.

He didn't bother to comment again on what anyone else was saying, tilting his head and making the fine linen sheets rustle softly beneath him as he inspected the ceiling yet again. One of the cherubs was green-eyed, though blonde instead of possessing the same ink-black hair that he found himself thinking of so often.

The reason for his distraction was that, despite spending the usual amount of time debauching the innocent and callous alike, he couldn't stop thinking about that boy, that little cherub who caught himself in a spider web of pain and death just two months ago.

Unconsciously, he raised a hand to his mouth and chewed on his knuckles. It was a habit that had saved him from biting straight through his lips more than once when lost in thought. Unseen by him, the Venezuelan youth beside him huffed and crossed his arms, upset at being ignored even after what they'd done last night.

Asmodeus decided that something would have to be done about this, this distraction of his, and soon, before he went completely stark raving mad and started spouting off poetry or buying flowers out of sentimental intent rather than to seduce someone. But what? Outside of bedding him, nothing came to mind. And what if the same thing happened with Harry as had with Leviathan all those years ago, a black spot on their work relationship that still made it difficult for them to work together?

He sighed heavily, the air feeling heavy and sticky with mortality. And speaking of mortality, his companions had other physical needs besides sex and needed to be fed somehow.

Reaching blindly along the side of the bed, he lifted a plate of half-eaten fruit from the night before, selected a half pomegranate, and passed the plate onto whoever else wanted something to hold them over.

Picking out seeds individually, he crunched them between his teeth, savoring the juice. Out of nowhere, he wondered if Harry's mouth would taste as blissfully tart.

He swore and rolled out of bed, not bothering to explain himself to his bedmate. He was going to have a bath, and then he was going to plot. This infatuation was absolutely unacceptable, even if Harry just so happened to be extraordinarily and inexplicably fascinating to him.

~o0o~

At the same time, Harry was also having a bath.

The bath water was heavenly and he'd even scented it with the bath salts he found in the towel cabinet, deciding to take advantage of as much as he could before this inevitably went to hell. It simply didn't make sense for something this wonderful to happen to him out of nowhere, or, if it did, for it to last very long… his life so far had convinced him of that.

Harry raised one leg far enough to peek at his toes, grinning at how wrinkly they were getting at this point. The steam was making him slightly light-headed, though, as there wasn't a fan. His head lolled back on the porcelain rim. His hair, which still needed to be cut in his opinion, hung over the rim, heavy and damp.

He shut his eyes, intending to only do it for a moment, but he started to doze, unconsciously drifting lower and lower into the water until it came up to his nose and went up it. Spluttering, he woke up again and pushed a wet lock of hair behind his ear.

Someone rapped on the door just then and he jumped, splashing a little water over the rim of the tub, where it stained the blue bath rug dark navy.

"H-Hello?"

The sound of Bronislav's voice filtered through the door. "Harry? I don't mean to disturb you, but are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Did you want me to get out of the bath now?" His voice quavered a little, and he flushed at how mouse-like he sounded.

On the other side of the door, Bronislav frowned. He hadn't meant to make Harry nervous or uncomfortable. "No, stay in as long as you like. I just wanted to make sure that you hadn't fallen asleep."

"Oh! I almost did, but I swear I'm completely conscious."

He chuckled at him. "Alright, Harry; dinner will be ready in roughly half in hour, if you want to eat it hot."

Harry bent himself nearly in half and reached between his legs to unplug the drain. "I'll be down in a few minutes. Just let me get dried off."

Bronislav's footsteps retreated, and Harry hugged his goose-pimpled knees to his chest, deciding to sit in the tub until all of the water drained away instead of getting out immediately.

He shivered, staring at the small tornado-shaped cyclone of water pouring down the drain and away from him. He considerately scooped up a few black hairs stuck in the drain, tossing them into the trash can.

For now, he was happy, and every time he thought about how nice Bronislav was, he felt all warm inside, as though he'd just had some good soup, the kind old ladies say warms the heart.

He pulled on his new clothes, soft and cottony and colorful like other children's, and padded out to have dinner. Bronislav greeted him with a smile and indicated which chair he was to sit in. Harry climbed into it and smiled nervously back.

He'd been here for two months already, and was already going to a new school. He hadn't made any friends yet, since he wasn't sure what he'd do with a friend if he made one.

"How was school?"

Bronislav asked this same question every school day. Harry did his best to make his answers interesting.

"It was pretty good, but my math teacher, Mr. V, wants to talk to you tomorrow."

Bronislav raised his eyebrows, "Did you do something?"

"No! No, I didn't do anything _bad. _I just finished the problems really fast, because they were easy, and he made me stay after class to do some more. He says he wants to give me some kind of test, and then he wants to talk to you about it," Harry shrugged, "I forgot what the test was called. Sorry."

He waved a hand, "Its fine. Wow, so do you like math?"

"It's okay I guess. I like reading best, and science is fun. I like learning about the dinosaurs and stuff."

They made small talk for the rest of the meal, and then they worked together to clean the kitchen. When they were finished, Bronislav offered to read him a book and Harry accepted. He loved it when Bronislav read to him; he read slow, and did funny voices for the characters. Harry also liked the books he read to him; they were more interesting than the ones at school, which never used words Harry didn't know the meaning of or talk about anything new.

At nine o'clock Harry was sent to bed, and Bronislav sat down with the evening's work. Playing with his pen, he contemplated Harry's intelligence. He wondered if getting him a tutor instead of sending him to school would be better or worse. Harry hadn't made any friends so far, and seemed almost painfully shy, so maybe it would help him to learn in a more private setting.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. He wasn't as good with children as his brother. It'd been a long time since he'd spoken to Vladimir. Maybe it was time they mended the broken bridges between them. He knew he was definitely going to need some advice when Harry reached puberty.

Digging in his desk, he located his best paper and began drafting a letter to his older brother.

~o0o~

The test on Friday was an aptitude test, and Harry scored far higher than even Bronislav had been expecting. His mind seemed to grasp new concepts at lightning speed, and apply them to things around him just as fast. Mr. V sent Harry into the hall to wait and sat Bronislav down to discuss what he had already made up his mind to do. There were programs for gifted children, but he wanted Harry to have a choice.

He brought Harry back into the room despite Mr. V's reluctance and explained his options and the situation. Harry listened with that intense seriousness all children seem capable of at times, and finally whispered his choice into his ear. Brilliant or not, he was still shy.

"Harry says he would like to be tutored instead of moved to a special program or school."

Mr. V was disappointed, but understanding. He patted Harry's head affectionately and said that he would be sorry to see him go. Harry darted away and hid behind Bronislav. He was getting too big for that to do him much good, but it didn't stop him from trying.

That night, Bronislav sent out a message to an old, old friend. Last he'd checked she wasn't the best with children, but she was good with intelligence. Hopefully she would be able to handle Harry's burgeoning intelligence as well as his status as a child.

~o0o~

Zebrine Hargreaves arrived on Sunday night and showed up on Bronislav's doorstep without warning.

Harry was sitting in his room going over his new textbooks when his guardian knocked on his door. He told him to come in without looking up from the astronomy chart that folded out of the back of his science textbook. It was a general overview of the most prominent fields of science, and he was excited to try out the chemistry portions. He'd always liked firecrackers, so working with things that could explode was tempting.

He wasn't as stoked about the whole dissection thing, though.

Bronislav cleared his throat awkwardly, and Harry's head jerked up. He jumped when he saw that they weren't alone. There was a woman standing beside him. Her skin was darker than the black crayon he used to draw stick figures, and she looked to be about halfway between 50 and 60 years old. She wore a brightly-patterned dress that reached her calves, and colorful slippers with little beads sewn on them.

Harry wasn't a people person, but he _liked _her. She was like a parrot: all bright colors and bright intelligent eyes.

She smiled at him and held out her hand for him to shake if he wanted to, "Hi there honey! I'm Zebrine, an old friend of Broni here. I'm going to be in charge of your schooling, if that's alright with you."

He smiled back tentatively, and she ruffled his hair, "Oh, you are just adorable! Bronislav didn't tell me you were so cute. Here, have some chocolate," digging into her generous hand bag, she pulled out a foil-wrapped bar of chocolate. It was half-eaten, and when Harry bit into the piece she gave him, he felt the crush of nuts and the sweet remnant of currants.

"Thank you," he said after chewing and swallowing. She gave him an indulgent smile.

"I think we're going to get along just fine. I need to get back to my hotel room for the night, but I will see you tomorrow, pet."

With a final ruffle of his hair and chuck of his chin, she whirled and left as suddenly as she'd arrived.

Next morning, Harry woke up even earlier than he normally did for school and helped Bronislav make eggs instead of just having cold cereal. Bronislav was late to work waiting for Zebrine to show up, and Harry pouted when he realized that this was because Bronislav didn't want to leave him home alone. He was old enough!

As soon as she showed up, Bronislav drew her aside for some furious whispering. Harry ignored them and started to draw a parrot on the inside of his math textbook.

Zebrine turned out to be stricter than he'd been expecting. She made up for this by giving him half hour breaks in between every subject and allotting two hours for lunch. Harry decided he liked her a lot, and hugged her back.

Once all the studying they could pack into one day with his attention span was over, Zebrine announced that it was nature time and dragged him out to the local park. He figured out how to use the swings and listened to her tell him stories about Egypt.

"How do you know so much about Egypt?"

She laughed, "Oh child, Egypt is my home. Well, it was a long time ago."

"Oh."

She told him another story, and Harry forgot about the funny way her voice sounded when she talked about how long ago it'd been. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of fur, and turned his head to see what it was.

It was a cat, bright white and lazy in the sunspot that'd formed between two trees. He abandoned Zebrine and ran over to it. Creeping the last few feet, he pounced on the hapless animal like he would a duck. It yowled and swiped a paw at his face. He dodged and clung tighter.

It was a lovely, lovely cat. It was soft and pretty and it started to purr instead of squirm when he stroked its ears.

Zebrine scolded him and told him to release the animal, but he refused and clung tighter. It butted its head against his palm and made a rumbly sound of affection. Zebrine put her hands on her hips and just shook her head in defeat after nigh unto half an hour of trying to reason with the boy.

They were getting a cat, and that was that.

~o0o~

That night, Asmodeus curled up on the pillow beside his cherubic owner and wondered what the hell he was doing. What had possessed him to reveal his animal form to the boy and then allow himself to be taken in as a pet?

He didn't mind the petting, though, and he had nothing better to do.

He might as well stay.

~o0o~

End chapter 6

The project is by no means revived completely, but hey, an update is an update no matter why.


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